Last Chance
by Kuro49
Summary: Erik/Charles. Erik comes home when Charles comes calling. And he wants Cerebro back.
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by Maroon 5's Last Chance and that single line: _And I'm the boy you've left behind_. Basically its a Erik-returns-to-build-Charles-their-long-distance-love-machine. And yes, my obsession still hasn't fade away. I don't own a thing.

XXX

**Last Chance**

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1. _This is the contraption that will end us all, he claims._

The metal panels rearrange themselves at his mercy, shifting like a child's blank canvas. Except his only color palette is a greying metallic and it isn't even the shining sort of silver.

One week ago. (He isn't keeping tabs, no, not at all.)

"Sorry for the intrusion."

Charles is still that warm rush of calm, he assumes. But Azazel makes manners seem menacing, more threatening than polite in all honesty. His apology is ambiguous, Magneto doesn't know for whom it is for.

"Erik?"

He only knows this intrusion of another's privacy hurts everything that Charles stands for.

And, because there is no understanding beyond what is verbally said, he allows himself a moment to imagine: Sincere blue eyes. But there is no proof, they have been apart for far too long. He seems to have forgotten. (_Impossible_.)

"I need your help."

The request has been simple, come back, built me a device that will keep me up and searching for that unknown feedback and leave. The last is an implication of his own, one that Erik makes for himself, before resolve crumbles along side of control, and he easily complies.

"Hank has the blueprints all ready for you."

And then he leaves just as softly as he has intruded on his life.

It takes all of ten seconds for Emma to walk in, glittering a diamond shell.

"He was just here."

Her voice jabs and nothing makes this any easier than he has imagined it to be but Magneto easily walks pass her with an air of indifference. "Who?"

"The telepath."

She doesn't say his name, she doesn't even need to know his name to know he is _his_ in every single aspect of that word. Emma turns to Azazel but he has long since learnt to keep his mouth shut, before Magneto, before Shaw even.

She drops his name and prays with all her heart that it will ground him in place. She is beginning to sound like Mystique and she doesn't even know why she is beginning to care all of a sudden. She has never had this problem, not even with Shaw.

"We're too close to him, Magneto."

He is standing by the frame of the door when she is warning him of all the consequences, like he doesn't have a clue.

"It doesn't matter, he won't do anything." _He doesn't care._

(But you will and _you do_.) But anything she says always falls upon deaf ears, still, she hasn't learnt or maybe this is her way of getting through to him and they continue. Sharp stares meeting menacing glares.

One week later. (But it isn't like anyone is counting the days away.)

"Erik."

Charles has changed in ways he can't see. There is sadness lying haunting in his eyes and Erik can see all that and more. He can pretend he is imagining it all, he can think he doesn't take notice. And yes, he might just be that oblivious. But it isn't in him to comment or leave another wake of destruction after him: He isn't a clear summer day anymore, he is a turbulent storm with his worst still to come.

Perhaps now, they are finally a match.

"Thank you for coming."

He doesn't make small talk about Raven, he doesn't comment on the weather, he doesn't even have the decency to look appalled by the presence of a man who has damaged him for life. In fact, Charles doesn't say much really.

And for once, Erik is the one filling in the silence suspended in the air.

"I like what you did with the house."

Erik stops in his steps. Because it is only then that he realizes his mind has been overriding reality and the words his tongue is articulating make him sound like a man with _taste_. He refuses to acknowledge the raised eyebrow on Charles' part and simply opts to stare with defiance at those eyes, daring him to challenge him in any shape or form.

Charles only smiles faintly.

Blue with gray around the edges, fading in sharp shards of optical filaments. Erik is starting to sound poetic and that is never a good sign.

"…Thanks, we just finished last week."

It goes without saying that he seeks him out the same day. But Cerebro can no longer loom ahead, an oversized white golf ball in a field of green, rather it is all underground, like a hidden secret of their shameful past.

(And much like the feelings he has suffocated beneath short and supposedly manageable years of being apart.)

He follows Charles into the elevator and they descend beneath the earth.

2. _You take me to places and show me new faces but we won't ever change, he confesses._

There are loose wires hanging down from the spherical room. Stray metal panels and steel beams. The tiled floors are grainy and dusty and there is a broad blue back in the centre of it all.

No one acknowledges Hank, just yet, and he pretends he can't hear a thing all the same. But it is unknown whether anyone notices the rigid spine and the slight curling of the ends of his blue fur.

"Sorry, old friend, but I can't go any further than this."

Charles stops by the opened doors where the corridors are still smooth and sleek, unlit and dim but still assessable unlike the beginning stages of what Cerebro will become.

They stand a mere two feet apart but there is a distance that they can never just ignore. Because there is an ocean of pain and knots over knots of regret and guilt that stands in the way.

Erik nods in understanding and takes another step backwards, stepping right into Cerebro. The soles of his shoes are halfway in between two worlds.

"If there's anything, just think a little loud—" But Charles; voice catches in his throat and it is like they finally remember the helmet straining between them, another addition to everything that obstructs their shared path. He sounds worn down and a little border lining on desperate. "I mean," he swallows thickly at this, "just tell Hank if there's anything you two need."

He turns around, hand on the wheels as he makes to leave, back out of everything he has initiated. (And for the sake of what? He still hasn't decided.)

"Charles." _Can I assume that I am safe here?_

It is a break through.

A simple sort of therapy that isn't supposed to be capable of healing the soul this soon but it does and it makes him smile. Lips and teeth hurting as Erik's mental voice finally makes its way into his head, burrowing within the empty spaces that is starting to gather dust at the edge of all that sadness.

Charles sits still, careful because he isn't convinced that this isn't just another fleeting moment of hope he has envisioned for himself.

…_Of course, my friend._

And it is tedious and uncertain but this is how healing works in reality, they suppose.

Erik slowly turns the metal structure of the wheelchair, the one he has put him in, so they can face one another. Nothing is emotional, at least not on the surface, not as far as they can tell but they have also learnt to never pry, at least never again. There are no free flowing tears or quivering bottom lips. They are much too old for this and although years in the future, they will miss the chance to indulge and let go just a little more, right now, they know this is enough.

Erik has his helmet in his hands and he floats it over like a peace offering.

Except it is the representation of all the resentment he should feel. Charles has accusations he can flood into Erik's mind, he has all the pain and exhaustion from months in rehabilitation but when metal touches his up-turned palms, all that dissolves and he is left with Erik.

No scarred past that comes with the Lehnsherr name, no heightened determination to bring forth mutant supremacy that lies heavy with equivalence to Magneto, because Erik is just a young man he has spent nights after nights playing a simple game of chess with.

And it is just that.

With all the worn and old arguments forgotten, they finally see the other for who they are.

"Charles."

"Hmm?" He replies, a little breathless from the shock of the metal, smooth and cold in his hands.

"Hold on to that for me, will you?"

Charles nods, smile strained but genuine, like he finally means what he says and his face finally reflects what he feels on the inside. Erik turns around, long cape sweeping behind him and Charles notes to mention it to him that it gathers more dust than it looks menacing.

Unless Erik is trying to make a fashion statement. If that is the case, Charles will keep quiet.

3. _I am the vessel in which you ride in, not the map in which you rely on, he says._

The relationship they have is built on trust. And it is in his last moments on the beach that he learns to reflect.

He thinks of—oh, what was that single running thought?

He can't recall. But he knows it has led him on a nameless search he hasn't found the start to. There is a warmth in the knowledge that Erik is back in the Westchester Mansion and although he may be meters and meters beneath the surface, there is a heated sensation that is beginning to spread.

Yes, it is different now but he likes to pretend they can be civil and easy, and he hopes they won't fall back on old habits once more. (Because it is with experience that he knows that it never gets them anywhere without scars and bruises to show.)

Charles finds solace in the human mind, all hidden memories and secret thoughts combined just as Erik finds comfort in the way metal curls with his beckoning.

"Why does it have to be him, Professor?"

He is sitting in the downstairs study when Alex walks into the room with Sean trailing behind. They have both grown, filling out t-shirts and dragging long and awkward limbs into something that resemble confidence and young men instead of boys forced to grow up in circumstances that they cannot change.

"Can you think of anyone else?"

Charles doesn't ask them to sit, this house is not his anymore, it is theirs as much as it is anyone he lets through the doors.

"We could have made it from scratch."

"I am sure you could." And he does believe that, he has faith in what they can but don't know how to do yet. There is no mockery in his voice, just a sense of sincerity that they are still not used to.

"Then why?"

"He was free, he had time, and he didn't mind helping out an old friend."

"Professor—" Alex starts but Sean clenches a hand around his elbow, fingers pink, knuckles white. And Charles doesn't need to guess to know all the exertion Sean has put into that grip to keep Alex from launching forward in a frenzy of words laced with righteous poison. (One that he knows he needs to hear, but just please not today.)

"No one needs that, Alex. Professor X is a the professor here, just listen to him."

Sean pulls a tight-lipped smile, an attempt at reassurance, and yes, they have truly grown.

"Thank you, Sean. Alex. Erik is still a friend, despite our past… setbacks."

Alex bites back on all the comments he wants to make at the vocabulary Charles decides on and Sean lessens the force he applies to Alex's arm.

"And he is the perfect candidate to help us with Cerebro, I didn't want anymore hassle with the construction crew." He doesn't want to sound like he is explaining himself but he knows he is doing just that. "They ruined too many nice rugs I had and nearly killed the trees in the yard if it wasn't for that slightly nicer landscaper we hired at the last minute. Erasing their memories of the past month is not hard, it is convincing them that the sudden deposit of our payment is legit and reasonable."

Alex rolls his eyes and Charles pretends he doesn't hear the we-shouldn't-have-even-paid-them that he mutters beneath his breath. Sean smiles and it is crooked and natural.

There are still so many omissions that need to be brought up but today, they decide as a broken family of the left behind sort, is not the day they bring up the past that is only starting to scab over.

The betrayal is still raw, lines of angry red that is still pink and puffy around the edges, and they are not masochistic enough to go digging the day Erik comes back.

The helmet sits at the low shelf by the window. Magenta red gleaming in the afternoon sun and it is getting harder to ignore.

Charles smiles and Professor X will try again. For all the times he has failed to convince an old friend, he really should have just learnt to let go.

But forgiveness is always easier in return.

It may be the bullet that has terminated his ability to ever walk on soft grass, warm sand and cool wooden floors but it is forgetting the man that has caused it all that is proving harder and harder to do.

Charles can't forget Erik and all the good he could have done instead.

XXX Kuro

This is a 9-part oneshot that had to be separated before it grew even further out of epic proportions… OTL


	2. Chapter 2

Please don't expect plot or booty calls to be made because I can't do either of that without failing. Also: Beast!Hank is like Suli from Monsters Inc. to me. OOTL Everything belongs to their respective owners.

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**Last Chance**

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4. _You've seen all the skeletons in my closet, you just haven't seen the dirty laundry I've hidden under my bed, he declares._

Erik half expects the other to have his hand, or claws or paws, around his throat by now.

But he can still breathe just fine and Charles is nowhere to play referee again.

"Why did you agree?"

It is an hour of Hank explaining the blueprints in gruff words and about another half an hour of rough dissection of physics and wiring systems when he finally looks up from the papers and asks the question they have both come to the mutual agreement to leave alone. Erik isn't exasperated but he doesn't want to talk, he also knows he owes them this much.

If not everything else.

"Charles asked."

And he wishes these could be the magic words that could heal all of them. But it isn't and it doesn't.

"And you think it would a good idea?"

"I didn't think about it."

"I figured."

Erik merely glances up from the detailed scribbles that only Hank can understand and fixes the other with an even stare.

"I came here to build Cerebro."

"You are aware of the consequences it will have on the Professor."

"I'm not going to hurt him."

"Then what are you doing here?" But Hank doesn't let him interrupt; Erik catches the very human glint in those animal eyes. "You don't get it, do you? I took _months_ to make these blueprints, at his request. I could have took—"

"Weeks."

"Days actually. He has headaches, another repercussion of your actions. They are brief but frequent and I don't know what Cerebro will do to that." He places a palm on the papers spread out on the makeshift table and Hank really doesn't know whether he should call him Magneto or Erik. Neither feels right anymore. He is a whole other person.

"…I didn't know."

All the ignorance in the world is never enough to soothe the guilt.

"No one does, not even Alex or Sean. The Professor is good with being subtle."

"And you."

Erik doesn't look away, he isn't trying to pry but he needs to know.

"He told me once, the one time it got so bad he broadcasted, Alex and Sean were off the mansion grounds." Hank watches carefully, catching on to the fine purse of that frown, the uncomfortable glint of regret and recognition flashing in those eyes before continuing. "It was a gun pointed at your head and blood pouring from your face. There was a satellite in the background that he couldn't stop focusing on. His hands were still shaking when I finally confronted him."

Hank doesn't know what it means but he knows that it means something, if not for the world then just Erik and Charles will do.

His hands clench around the edge of the table and there is a heavy humming of the metal reverberating in the air that is growing consistently louder. The indications are clear but the implications aren't.

The blue lines stretch and blur together. And in the horrible lighting of Cerebro's skeleton, Erik isn't sure what he is looking at anymore.

"If Cerebro hurts him, I will personally tear it down with my hands."

Hank just shrugs and calls it a day, he isn't in a hurry and he doesn't care enough to ask if Erik is on a schedule of some sort. He leaves the hollow sphere that doesn't quite resemble Cerebro and leaves Erik alone with his suffocating anger.

Slamming a fist down on the blueprints, he seethes with a well-controlled grip on his emotions. He is no longer wearing the cape or the red jacket but the sight of them discarded above the pile of debris only fuels him to come back to himself.

When Magneto speaks his mind, Erik wishes he could be a better man. If not for the X-gene sewn into his DNA, he should have been able to do it for the other man.

Just like it has always been a battle of wits and guns with him, it is always just the battle of the mind with Charles.

They are different but once upon a time, he has wished they weren't so much so.

5. _You can't find me when I change and I change until I am the flip side of the moon, she tells him._

She arrives in the afternoon.

Human façade dissolving into blue as soon as she steps through the door. And although there are emotions gleaming bright in her feline eyes, she doesn't voice anything, just lets Charles pull her down to his level and this might just be the making and breaking of another bond between them.

His arms come to wrap around her neck, fingertips brushing at the ends of her hair.

"You're here."

He breathes into her ear and he sounds like he can't believe his eyes, like he can no longer trust himself to believe something real because he has been left alone for so long. She flashes back to her human body for barely a second but the gold curls that come to brush at his cheek brings a sharp clench to her heart, instead of his.

She is cold and unfeeling, she thinks.

"Hey Charles."

She tightens her arms around his body and the warmth of him gives her a recurring nostalgia that makes her eyes sting.

Her reasons are not pure but his are and for now, they are enough to keep them together.

Raven is standing in the kitchen when Hank comes up from below.

He stops in the doorway and watches as her skin flutters against her to create a makeshift set of clothes. She is still blue, her hair a dark burgundy red and eyes a monotone gold. Her faint smile fades into a line of lips when she catches sight of him and neither moves.

Charles turns in his chair and glances back at Hank with an apology already lingering along all of their minds. And Hank isn't sure all of this is supposed to mean something significant to him. He has already let go the day she decides to leave, he doesn't hate her for the choice she has made. He isn't even angry at Erik or Magneto or whatever he has adopted for taking her with him.

Hank is just a little sad it has ended this way, just so angry at why it all went out in a bang, bang, bang. He stands a little straighter and looks away from the Professor sitting at the table with a cup of tea in his hands.

And instead of formalities, they are much too familiar for that, he directs his question at Raven or Mystique or whoever the strange girl with the name he doesn't know how to formulate on his tongue anymore.

"Are you here to take him back?"

"…That is not a question you should be asking me."

Hank merely gives a shrug and steps through the frame of the doorway; he brushes right by her and continues. "I didn't want the Professor to have to ask."

She sighs and looks down at the blue, on her hands, on his hands. And are they really so different? She thinks. Charles takes a sip, noticing both the question and the thought.

"It's not my choice to make. I just want… confirmation."

No one asks what she is looking for.

"The water is still hot if you want to make anything to drink, Hank."

Charles offers with a raise of his cup and he swallows another gulp. He nods and drinks it lukewarm. Their positions in this war is constant, the silence is not.

"Where is he?"

Mystique asks with fingers running across the kitchen table, flitting and soft against old wood. Hank leans back against the counters and watches Raven's withdrawal as she does her duties.

"Down below the bunkers."

"What are you doing with him?"

Charles answers instead.

"He is building Cerebro." _For me_.

Mystique doesn't point out how wrong this is the same way Raven makes the mistake of replying.

"He misses you."

_I miss him too._

Raven doesn't see his lips move but the sounds are the same as they fill up every single surface thought she has. And she is almost envying the feelings Charles has given over to Erik when they all belonged to her on days in their past she hasn't learnt to appreciate until now.

But she has done her share of wrongful deeds and she understands his sentiments because she has enough of her own.

She catches the sight of him in the doorway.

"Magneto."

And Charles visibly cringes at the name.

Erik isn't wearing the cape, the jacket is gone too. Charles almost smiles but he knows this is only the start of something that could end horribly wrong once again. Raven straightens up from leaning over the tabletop and regards him with golden eyes flickering shades of blue, like she can't decide what she wants them to see.

"How did you know?"

His voice is smooth and low, effortless and aggravated, and he easily conceals all his emotions but none of them are amateurs at playing this game anymore. Not after everything he has put them through.

And she replies just as easily.

"Azazel."

6. _This is not for you, and this is not real, she promises with a heart of gold._

"Give us a minute, will you, Charles?"

Charles replies with a low hum in his throat. He drinks the tea and his cup is an endless supply of courage he can't afford to lose.

The two of them walk along the hallway until Mystique turns a sharp corner, he follows, and she closes the double doors behind them. She loses the clothes she puts on for her brother and Hank, regarding him with dangerous eyes. Voice spiking with a low tremor that threatens to spill over.

She isn't angry, or so she keeps telling herself. He hasn't meant to keep it from her, she knows he has his reasons.

"What are you doing here?"

"I can ask you the same thing."

"Emma knows."

"Of course she does."

"Then why? She can be planning a mutiny right now."

She splays a hand against the floral prints on the fabric as he sits down in one of the comfortable looking chair but she knows for a fact that they are less than so.

"She would if she could, she won't because she knows she isn't capable of doing it." He explains with thoughts of the White Queen doing all the dirty work for herself and he can only imagine her perfect nails and her white-white shoes. He looks up and finally catches her gaze, green eyes still no less convincing. "Trust me."

She does.

_You must know how he feels._ (Because sometimes, she can't remember he isn't the telepath. He is just too good with reading people, catching on to the unknown thing that makes them tick.) "Then why Charles? Why are you doing this to him?"

And he only has the reason he has given Hank earlier but he is kind enough to her to put it in words she can come to understand.

"I want us to be on equal grounds."

She shakes her head as she replies.

"It is never going to be the way it was again, Erik."

Raven sounds bitter and she looks hurt and haunted. Like the scars are healing up all wrong and the pain is still flowing like fresh blood.

She can't forgive herself. She isn't going to let him do the same.

"Let go."

It is a plead on every part of those two words, lonely and hanging in the air that smells strangely like library books and Charles. The day is still bright outside, blue skies, white clouds. It reminds him of a beach and the warm ocean breeze.

"Never again."

Erik has came home (yes because there is a firm belief that besides anything before Auschwitz this is the brightest memories he will ever have the privilege of owning) on the day the acres of land on the Xavier estate smell like fresh trimmed grass.

XXX Kuro

Uhh… I didn't actually realize that Charles and Erik didn't get to interact with each other until… now.


	3. Chapter 3

This is purely Erik and Charles and foreplay that lasts forever, no jokes. D: I don't own anything.

XXX

**Last Chance**

XXX

7. _Let's go on a rendezvous, one where no one can ever find us, he suggests._

Still, the dinner is not smooth sailing.

Alex doesn't eat, turns around at the door as his eyes catch sight of the two overly familiar strangers sitting with their hands in their laps. Sean bumps into him and offers a silent 'oh' when Alex walks away.

"They are guests."

Charles supplies weakly.

But even then, it is too late. The damage has been done and years later, they will all still have the nasty memories to show.

"They used to be _family_, Professor."

Sean says as he takes a seat at the table beside Hank, smiling at both Raven and Erik before his smile goes stone cold and he turns to his food. It is only for the professor that he tries. It is chilling and Raven sweeps her spoon across the soup, catching cream and tiny bits of vegetables in the mix.

She can't stay. And that notion sticks, clinging and blocking all other thoughts.

_Please._

But he breaks through all of that and he is still that same warmth that doesn't pry because he can still read her like an open book on days Raven is still around and about that blue body.

_Not tonight._

But she is different from the little girl he has found in his kitchen. For all the sacrifices he has made for her, she will do the same but tonight is not something she can intrude on. She loves him on a level where she can still let go willingly.

"Come back soon."

"I'll be back, he appointed me mediator between him and the Brotherhood."

She forces on a smile and the one he gives her in return is much too fond for a man with a broken heart.

"Oh Erik."

She aches when he can't. Charles smoothes a hand down the curve of her shoulder. "I mean it though. This home is yours too, Raven."

She doesn't promise him anything, and he doesn't read her mind for the truth.

"Call me Mys—"

"You know I can't."

"One day, you will learn to say it to my face." _One day, I will hurt myself just as much as I've hurt you._

"Raven, I won't ever." He smiles like he means every word he says but she has learnt to catch on to the lies years before. And this will eventually become one of them.

She smiles for him as she presses a kiss to his forehead.

"Take care."

His hand caresses her cheek as he murmurs against golden curls. The tears that fall from her eyes when the door closes slowly behind her are crocodile tears, or so Raven has convinced Mystique.

She takes it upon herself, and the sky is pitch black when Mystique forces down another sob.

8. _We will fold in on ourselves when they spread themselves thin, he observes._

When it is only the two of them left, after Charles accompanies Raven to the door, after Sean softly excuses himself from the table, after Hank clears the table, Erik stands up from his chair just as Charles returns.

"Turning in for the night, Erik?"

And this isn't the first time Erik notices that Charles is holding back something, if not everything, by the way he worries at his bottom lip in distraction.

"…It's been a long day."

Charles hums in agreement, setting his hands in his lap and he is suddenly feeling much smaller in his wheelchair when compared to a standing Erik.

"Charles."

He glances up from his hands at the call of his name.

"Do you want to play a game of chess with me?"

And a soft smile stretches across his lips.

"You hardly needed to ask, my friend."

Charles allows Erik to take hold of his wheelchair and even though he could easily use his powers to push him along the long corridors, he doesn't. Erik gently wraps his hands around the metal handles and steers him out of the kitchen.

"I have been using the downstairs library, I don't think we've played in there before."

It has always been the second level library at the end of the hall, the one closest to Charles' bedroom, the one directly across from Erik's. The situation has changed.

"Which way?"

"Short cut or the more proper way?"

"Which do you like?"

"I never get to use the shortcut, opening all those doors are not easy in the chair."

"Then let me do it."

"Gladly." Charles cocks his head back and beams at him with the biggest smile. Erik doesn't think he deserves any of this. "Through those doors then."

Passing through two connected dinning rooms and then a ballroom is not exhausting in the slightest. Erik doesn't even lift a hand to open the doors, they swing open and close behind them with an effortless grace he has only begin to master. It is the thought that this house seems to have grown that is distressing on Erik's part.

"And right through those doors is the library." _Erik, your thoughts are absurd. This house can't grow._

Charles points to the dark mahogany wooden doors and they open with a simple curl of Erik's powers. A gentle beckoning that Charles picks up on as it washes over him, or maybe that is something completely different.

"…That was the short cut?"

"Yes."

"Do I even want to know the long way?"

"The long way just goes around the ballroom and down another hall instead. It's not too long by a stretch, but I wanted to make use of your groovy mutation while I still have it at my disposal."

There are too many fundamental wants and needs that they can't say out loud and so they bury it beneath carelessness and a play on words.

"Charles, my powers are not—"

"Hush, darling." There is an underlying romance with the ease these sort of affectionate words slip from his mouth but Erik takes it all in as good nature because Charles is taking back control of his wheelchair, and not because he is embarrassed. No, that isn't it; his skin has always been naturally flushed that way.

When Charles parks himself in the centre of the room, Erik finally finds his eyes resting on a chess set made of metal.

And Erik really doesn't know how he doesn't feel this before.

"Play with me?"

Charles reaches out and touches a chess piece, running a blunt fingernail down the black king, and Erik feels as though that ghost of a finger is tracing something sensual down the crook of his spine.

Erik narrows his eyes and Charles pulls back, smile coy and reluctant with apology. (Because he still wants to know just what he can do to him.)

"I play black."

"Perfect, I only play white."

Charles spins the chessboard around and pulls himself closer to the table.

Erik watches as he rearranges the pieces, an unnecessary procedure since no one even comes into this library besides Charles and he knows Charles likes a challenge, he is never one to play a game by himself.

Erik takes a seat.

The fireplace is dim but the handful of lamps littered around the high ceiling room is enough to create a strange trance around them. The yolky yellow casts a warmth to Charles' cheeks and the bright silver pieces are dull weights.

It takes two and a check of a game to warm them up to casual conversation.

"Erik… Do you want it back?"

Charles doesn't look up from the board for an irrational fear that he knows shouldn't exist anymore, that uncertainty and seclusion that brews when Erik is separated from him with the simple metal of a helmet. He pulls back a rook from the imminent danger it is in and his touch lingers heavily on the warming metal. He continues.

"It's in my study if you ever want it back."

Erik moves a piece, traps Charles' knight in place. "I don't need it in your vicinity, Charles."

A smile plays at his lips but it isn't coy, it is hope.

(It has always been hope between them.)

"I'm glad you still trust me."

And Erik thinks this isn't the way it is supposed to be. Charles knows better, he needs to. "You are the only person I can trust."

This brings them back to the start, back when they first meet, back when his mission is still blurry beyond the first crash of waves. Charles slowly moves another piece before he actually sees the situation sprawled across the board. But his hands have already let go and it is Erik's turn.

"Yes, I remember." (Only he doesn't know what he has done to deserve this endless trust.)

They are at the end of their fifth game when they realize the time. It is nearly two in the morning and are they really trying to catch up with all the games of chess they have missed throughout the years of apart?

Because if that is the case, they will need years to make up for all the loss they have gathered since the last time they sat together in the same room, like sophisticated adults without the burning need to pull the other in for a teenage kiss.

"Checkmate."

Erik leans across the table and pauses with his words. He is waiting, hand reaching out at an agonizing pace. Charles holds his breath as Erik finally runs a hand across his cheek, brushing back brown locks of hair that will always carry that natural wave at the ends.

"I win, Charles."

It takes a second and then a few more for it to settle.

And then he is pushing aside the table and levitating the pieces of metal in the air as he stumbles across the short distance between them to kneel at the other man's feet. Erik's hands feel at the curve of his jaw before he rests his palms in the dip where Charles' neck stretches out into his shoulders.

Charles lets out a choked up breath, the chess pieces don't fall.

And it takes several seconds of courage before Erik can glance up. While all he sees is vulnerability drowning in the shapeless blue, it doesn't take anything, he knows he is the cause of it all. He doesn't say the one thing that matters, he doesn't tell him they are in love. He only pulls Charles into a hug and the other returns the gesture, only it is with a reluctant sort of need, like he cannot believe this is real.

And it shouldn't be, it has only been a day.

Erik reminds himself and impulse snaps at him to pull away.

Only Charles catches on to the first of his instincts and clenches fingers around the back of his neck. The impulse coils into a little black box at Charles' warning.

"Don't you dare."

And it isn't a request, by now, it is easy to command the other under false pretence that this is enough.

He lets out a breathless sort of relief into the crook of his neck and the world is finally still, an eternity (a sort of forever that can make the numbers running along his forearm tremor in pain of those memories.)

But unlike that thought, being with Charles is a different sort of eternity that makes him yearn for more and he almost feels too human. Erik holds on to all his self-loathe and gives Charles everything else with a gentle call of his name in his head.

Just because he knows the other is always by the door, too afraid of another closed one to venture through the opened door.

_Come on in, this is all for you._

He imagines Charles smiling in his mind and it isn't made of the tilting of lips or the pulling of the facial muscle. It is a sensation that he feels but can't recall.

In real time, Charles reaches out behind him and grips at the black king tightly in his outstretched hand, plucking the metal piece from the air as they finally pull back from the other's embrace.

They are supposed to question their actions and think over the overlying intensions that is beginning to surface. Charles doesn't push Erik into a nearby chair, he doesn't hold on for one more second of contact, he lets him go with dry blue eyes and a smile to match.

He stands up straight and much like Charles, he swallows all his sentiments and tries a little harder to stay away. Proximity is a strange thing and control is just as foreign. He nods stiffly and takes a step back.

"Good night."

"Good night, Erik."

Unknown to him, Charles only grips the black king tighter in his hands as the door silently shuts behind him.

9. _And then you'll spend the rest of your life stuck on that single what-if, he isn't wrong._

Instead of sleeping, he has nightmares of Shaw over metal scalpels he can't control and when he dreams, he sees Charles blinking but he always looks more like he is winking right at him.

And Erik doesn't know what this is all supposed to mean.

(Shaw is dead and Charles, he will never look at him that way again.)

He wakes up to the sound of classical music, way before their time. Making his way through the dark, he somehow manages to fumble into the downstairs library once more.

Nudging the door open another sliver of a crack, he catches the sight of yellow light and a burning fire in the fireplace. The music is audible and it is most definitely a classic of some sort.

"Did I wake you?"

Charles is sitting by the windows with his back turned to the door.

"No, I just couldn't sleep."

At this, Charles slowly turns around, a glass of scotch in his hands and offers.

"Do you... want me to...?"

Erik shakes his head at the fingers Charles holds up as he walks further into the familiar room.

(When he closes the door to the room, they will talk. Like nothing is breaking on the front lines of mutants versus humans, like no blood has ever been shed for a shared vision fractured all along the edges.)

The door closes behind him.

"You couldn't sleep."

Even without his telepathy or Erik's unconscious broadcast of nightmares bleeding over into his dreams, it will always be a question he knows the answer to. He pours a small cup of scotch and lifts it up as an offering.

Erik hesitates, picks it from his hands, fingers careful to avoid touching Charles. Not because he doesn't want to but because he doesn't know whether he can let go if he ever lets himself latch on to something he will damage in the end.

He takes a sip and sits down on a nearby chair.

"Neither can you."

Charles only smiles with a faint nod. There's ice in his scotch and then more scotch gets poured over the rounded ice cubes. Erik doesn't say anything else. Because it is easy to cross the line and forget all the wrongful deeds he has ever done, Charles is forgiving that way.

But when the end justifies the means, he thinks, it shouldn't matter which path he has taken. He will always end up here, never a stray, always the one responsible for counter balancing all the righteous wrongs in the world.

Charles tilts his head back and drinks the remaining alcohol in his cup.

Erik doesn't know if Charles is handling alcohol better or if he has simply given up on being sober. He tries to forget the past conversations, the ones about a woman named Sharon. Only he has seen the lonely photographs hanging among the floral wallpapers of a young Charles and his mother, and their matching eyes that gleamed with something more than despair and misunderstandings.

But that has been a long time ago.

Charles reaches out for the bottle.

"Don't make me stop you."

Erik speaks up softly and watches carefully as the alcohol-induced haze lifts from the blue of his eyes. But the smile that stretches over his lips is wretched, like he is trying his hardest to hold on to the last bit of his control.

"…You are going to deny me this too?"

He reluctantly pulls back and the sadness in his smile is finally making its way to Erik's heart. And only then does Erik finally catch the smell of metal on his hands.

There is a different sort of beckoning that brings Erik to pull the other man's wheelchair closer. Erik is seeing him in a different light when Charles' insecurities finally shine through, he is tense in his seat and his stare is daring Erik to do unspeakably cruel things.

Only, Erik stands up from his seat to meet him halfway. Refusing him the hate that he wants and giving back parts of what Charles has shown him when they are driving down interstate highways with the radio dialled down to a quiet murmur in the background of their comfortable silence.

"Your hands."

Erik simply states. And maybe this is the reassurance Charles needs most of all.

"What about them?"

He takes them into his, leans down and brings it close to his face. Charles tries to pull back, withdraw when he catches the glimpse of the thought that Erik projects at him but Erik is already pressing his lips to the centre of his right palm. Mouth murmuring, "they smell like metal" into the skin.

(And it isn't a kiss. It is a simple press of lips to skin.)

And this isn't affection. It is much more than that simple swell of fondness in their chests. He breathes in. This runs much deeper than love.

Charles draws back only when Erik finally lets go, touch lingering for far too long.

"Erik."

He starts in a feather light tone and rejection really should come easier than this.

"I won't stay."

But they also have to make it clear before the ambiguous kindness bleeds over.

"I know."

He smiles and folds his hands into his lap. There is a distance in his eyes and Erik continues. This is mutual brutality and they have to be firm for all the blood mutant warfare will surely spill.

"It is only a matter of time that Cerebro is built."

And no matter his reluctance, much like he has involved himself with the work of this machine, he knows he is only capable of hurting Charles some more. Erik tries not to think about the consequences of his actions.

"I wouldn't dare to take up anymore of your time."

"I wish—" _I could give you more._ (For everything I have taken from you.)

"It's enough." And it really is, for all the hope he has given him, Charles knows he can't ask for more but he always does. "Just don't ask me to call you Magneto."

He thinks of Raven and Mys—she is both, never just one or the other anymore and he will never stop caring for the sister he has convinced the world he has.

"Fair enough."

Charles smiles, Erik returns the gesture, except, his smile is just, strained like steel beams and Charles thinks he is perfect this way.

But he isn't sure anymore. It is a cruel torturous sensation the way they can ease the other out of their clothes. Whether it is with a simple lift of a finger as a zipper slides down or two fingers to the temple as hands easily peel back the soft material of his black turtleneck.

They don't and they won't.

Even though they can feel all the urges and wants that run parallel between them, they never have the need to act upon it. They love, they lust but never in their mind do they need to pull the other in for a searing kiss, all probing tongues and bearing teeth.

(At least, not anymore.)

They still have control.

But what if—just what if—they don't think about it.

(Because even when he doesn't see him anymore, he is always on his mind.)

And there is always time for one last chance between the one who left and the boyish man he has left behind.

He reaches up for him just as he bends down to him. The metal warms and another closed door is opening up for him.

There, right here, is the press of lips to lips.

XXX Kuro

...No, Erik never really does get to making Cerebro... (I failed my only plot point.)


End file.
